Jeremy’s stomach chose that moment to growl loudly. His cheeks turned pink, and he dropped his forehead to my chest in embarrassment. I snickered. “I guess I should feed you.”
He winked at me. “We might have to wait a few minutes to recover.”
I growled and flipped him onto his back, bracketing his head with my arms. “This is going to be the best month ever.”
FOURTEEN
JEREMY
After Sean made sixty-nine my new favorite number, he brought me over to the restaurant to have what was now brunch. He loaned me a pair of sweatpants, a T-shirt, and a Rutgers University hoodie so I wouldn’t have to put on my sweaty workout clothes. If I snuck a whiff or two of his scent now and then, that was my business. We had just finished eating when his general manager, Caitlin, came to the table.
She shot me an apologetic smile. “Sorry to interrupt, Mr. O’Neil, but there’s sort of an emergency.”
Sean muttered a curse under his breath and rose. He cupped my cheek and gave me a sweet kiss that held so much promise. “I’ll see you later, okay?”
I nodded and glanced over at the piano. “I’ll probably be here practicing.”
“You don’t have to wait until the room is empty,” Sean said. “I don’t think anyone would mind listening to you play.”
I looked around the dining room after he left. There seemed to be about ten or so people remaining. My first impulse was to run. I hadn’t played in front of an audience since that horrible night almost a year ago. But in one month, I was supposed to play in front of a hundred of Evan and Raphael’s close friends and family. How could I play for one hundred people if I couldn’t play in front of ten? It occurred to me that Sean didn’t know that part of my story—the most shameful part in my eyes. I shook my head. I’d already told the man more than I had most people in my life. Only Evan and my therapist knew what Pierce had done to me.
The piano gleamed in the bright sunlight pouring through the leaded-glass windows. The instrument called to me, just like it always had. I got a few curious glances when I sat on the sturdy wooden bench, but I did my best to ignore them. I lifted the fallboard and ran my fingers over the keys, contemplating which piece I would work on first. Evan and Raphael had chosen three to be played for their ceremony, and I knew them all well. I finally decided to start with “Spring” from Vivaldi’sFour Seasonsviolin concerti arranged for piano.
My fingers trembled when I began to play, and I felt the weighted presence of those ten people as though they were a thousand. I paused and took a moment to breathe. In through the nose for five counts, out through the mouth for seven. A few rounds of that lowered my heart rate and relaxed my muscles. I started again, shut out the sounds of people eating and conversing, and focused only on the keys in front of me. Soon I was lost in the music, filled with the joy of bringing life to notes on a page. I moved on to Pachelbel’sCanon in D majorand finally toArrival of the Queen of Shebaby Handel. I chuckled to myself as I remembered teasing Evan about picking that piece.
When I rested my fingers on the keys at the end of the last piece, there was a smattering of applause. I started slightly and turned to find that most of the ten people had stayed to listen to me play. I felt my face heat. Again, my first instinct was to leave, but I couldn’t. While I played the pieces for Evan’s wedding, something else had been growing in the back of my mind—a composition of my own. I felt the thrum of excitement deep within me. I hadn't been inspired to write a new piece in almost two years. I had allowed Pierce’s subtle jabs to blunt my creativity even before the accident.
I nodded and smiled at the people who had applauded, then pulled my phone out of the front pocket of Sean’s hoodie. I opened the recording app, started it, and put the phone on the piano. I didn’t have any staff paper with me, but I could record it now and write it down later. I sat with my eyes closed and let the music come to me.
An hour later, I had a nicely formed, short piece that would need a little more polishing to make it perfect for what I had in mind. I opened a blank file in my recording app and played it once more so I could transcribe it in my room.
As the last notes faded away in the quiet room, a pair of strong arms slid around me and Sean kissed the top of my head. “That was beautiful,” he said. “What’s it from? I’ve never heard it before.”
I turned off my recorder and leaned back against him. “No one has—except you and me.”
He came around so he could see my face. “Wait, you wrote that? Like, just now?”
I nodded. “I was working on the music for Evan’s wedding and got inspired. It will be my gift to him and Raphael.”
“Wow, that’s amazing. He’s going to love it.”
I turned on the bench so my back was to the piano. I reached up and wound my arms around his waist. “Thank you.”
Sean kissed me. “I admire people who can do that—envision a piece of art and then make it happen. Liam is like that. I just sing, but he can sing and play three instruments.” He motioned behind me. “This piano was put here for him.”
I felt my brows rise. “Really? Wow. He must be very talented.”
“He is,” Sean agreed. “But I think it was more that Mr. Whitaker was trying to keep Liam here because he liked listening to him play.”
“Mr. Whitaker?” I asked.
“The previous owner of Moonlight,” Sean replied.
“Oh.” I blinked in confusion. “I thought you inherited the hotel.”
“I did,” he said with a wry smile. “It’s kind of a strange story.” He looked around the beautiful dining room before he began. “My dad was a contractor. He specialized in Victorian restorations and was really good at what he did.”
I caught a theme. “You said was. Has your father passed?”
